


Letters and Lines

by romymars (purple_pyro)



Series: Making Monsters [3]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 20:43:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9675650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_pyro/pseuds/romymars
Summary: Ruri collects the day's mail.





	

The letters started arriving after about a month. Ruri stopped by the mailbox as she came home from school, reaching in and fitting her hands around the stack of envelopes inside. Bills, bills, bills, bills, and some letters. She didn't recognize any of the return addresses, but her father seemed troubled when he sat down with the mail after dinner. The invoices were sorted out and set aside, and he flicked through the remainders before selecting one and slicing it open. The room was quiet: just the ceiling fan creaking, the rustle of paper as he unfolded the letter, and the _scritch scritch_ of Ruri's pencil as she worked through her math homework.

"Your Aunt Hinami has died." The pencil stopped, the fact registered, and then it started again. Another relative gone, but it was so far from news anymore that Ruri didn't need to respond beyond a solemn nod. Her father continued reading, an unspoken sigh in his eyes. He had been expecting it, though the ungainly slump in his shoulders deepened as he finished reading the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. He went through the rest of the stack in the same way. The reading of Uncle Daiki's will and testimony was this Sunday, though it's unlikely that he has anything to give away. Two of the letters were asking for money, as if the Hijiribes had any to give. Father finished with the mail and stood, collecting the envelopes and heading upstairs. Ruri completed her worksheet in silence, though instead of stopping to check her answers, she turned to a new page in her notebook.

She wrote her name at the bottom, adding a "T" at the top that branched out. The start of a family tree, with Mother on the left and Father on the right. Mother had no siblings, as far as she knew, and Ruri was completely in the dark where Grandmother was concerned. She added another line, wrote in Grandfather, stopped, frowned. That was as far back as she could go.

But extended from Father were his parents and four siblings. He was the youngest, and she ranked them in ascending age. Aunt Hinami married two years ago with two stepchildren. Uncle Daiki was a bachelor. Uncle Kichirou had four children: Satomi, Takeshi, Michiko, and Osamu. Aunt Paku had a son in college that Ruri had never met. Her paternal grandparents, Katashi and Himeko, had three siblings between them: Ayami and Ryouta, and Haruto. Between those three, Ruri had two second-uncles and one second-aunts, with five second-cousins. She filled out the rest of the family tree to the best of her memory, adding question marks for the names she didn't know. Father had a web of relatives, but Mother's family went up one generation before ending abruptly. Ruri set her pencil down, paused to review her work, and picked up a pen instead.

 

~~Grandfather Katashi~~

~~Second cousin Sayuri~~

~~Great Aunt Aiko~~

~~Uncle Kichirou~~

~~Aunt Paku's son~~

~~Second cousin Kaede~~

~~Uncle Daiki~~

~~Step-cousin Reiji~~

~~Great Uncle Haruto~~

~~Cousin Michiko~~

~~Great Uncle Ryouta~~

~~Aunt Hinami~~

 

Suicide.

It starts with the plea for extra funds. Gambling problems, school tuition, a mortgage going under. It isn't Father's money to give, if there was any left to offer in the first place. Ruri's mother cannot afford to give away all she has to her in-laws, who mourn the loss of their borrowed power before deciding to be mourned themselves. The Hijiribes receive a funeral invite. They wait for the cycle to begin again.

There was a reason grandfather had taken his wife's name. There was some sort of mystique in _Hijiribe_ , how it spoke of nobility without title and wealth without source. Grandmother was more of a concept than a person, a dream that walked into town one day dripping with riches, ghosted around for a decade, then left without taking anything with her. With how people continued to whisper, one would think she was still here.

Ruri missed her mother. She was rarely at home anymore, calling in favors and old friends trying to keep her family afloat. The house felt emptier than usual, though it had always been too large for a family of four. Father mentioned the possibility of some of their extended family coming to stay if their mortgages were foreclosed. It went without saying that they would have to pitch in with funds: Grandfather was having trouble walking lately, and they didn't have the income to pay for many more doctor's visits.

Ruri thought about what it meant to die, and decided that she would like to find out someday. Just not yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically I wrote this last year so I can't even say it's my first thing for 2017. Honestly, overwatch has consumed me and I hate myself for it. But Ruri is forever. So here, take my headcanons.


End file.
